


the lies we tell ourselves (if only so we can live)

by Darth Occlus (NotSummer)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Force Ghosts, Heavy Angst, No one deserves this, Twilight of the Apprentice, buckets of tears, i cried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 07:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6414274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotSummer/pseuds/Darth%20Occlus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no death, there is the Force.</p><p> </p><p>The code has never felt like such a lie before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the lies we tell ourselves (if only so we can live)

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed. Wrote this after watching the last episode of Rebels.

He feels a familiar presence, one he hasn't felt in over a decade, and joy comes seeping into his heart. But he hasn't heard a door open, and as he turns there is no russet skin and blue eyes to greet him and the joy turns ice cold.

She's here, but not really. Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he can spot a familiar form, but when he turns, there is only an empty room.

He can hear her voice.

And wishes he couldn't.

"You knew, didn't you?"

It's a damning accusation, and words, usually so quick on his tongue, catch in his throat and he chokes under the weight of his sins.

 

 

The next time she appears, he can see her lithe form. She sits on the cliff side near his hovel, her shoulders weighed down. When she finally turns to face him, her face is lined, aged beyond her time, and the remnants of hard life, a lonely one, have carved themselves into her skin.

"He promised he would never let anyone hurt me." Her face twists in confusion and pain, and she look so young and broken and the Force  _screams_ with her sorrow.

When his vision clears, she is no longer there.

 

 

"She warned me. Said I would never see my future if I remained  _his_ student."

He doesn't ask who. 

 

 

"You always said how alike we were." Grains of sand rush down the gentle slope of the dune he stands on, and he grimaces.

"I wish that were the case," her voice whispers, almost swallowed by the breeze careening haphazardly through the Dune Sea. "Maybe then I could understand why."

The Force shudders as a wave of  _sorrow pain betrayal anguish why why why WHY WHY_ ripples through it, and he can't breathe.

 

 

"On Geonosis, he refused to stop looking for me. To make sure I was safe."

The unspoken question hangs in the air, and he has no answer. He doesn't think he'll ever know what truly shattered Anakin.

The Force cringes and he sees a broken figure alone on a darkened world, struggled to take her final breath.

"It can't be Skyguy," she whispers. Her presence dims. "It can't be."

 

 

It's the last time he sees her, but as one final gift to his old friend, he travels to Malachor. Her blades are missing but she still has her comm, beeping sadly, unable to send it's last message. He cradles it in his hands, and after a proper send-off, he retreats to Tatooine.

The comm sits on his small table for three days before he works up the courage to hit send.

 

 

 _Hey Rexter. I should have listened._ A broken cough, sounding like treads on wet gravel.  _Was never good at following orders. Vader._

Her eyes close, and she shudders, and a sob claws its way out her body, somehow looking smaller than the day she stepped off the shuttle on Christopsis.  _Keep Kanan and Ezra away from him. Watch out for them._ She shudders, and convulses, her wounds taking a toll. 

 _May... May the Force_ and her eyes roll backwards, and she goes limp.

 

 

When a young boy asks how his father died, all her can bring himself to say is that Vader murdered him. The lie is easy enough to live with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the truth, he fears, would kill him.

 

 


End file.
